It turns out the conclusion of my column in Civil Beat last week was wrong.
I concluded that since emailed meeting notices aren’t covered by the state’s Sunshine Law, it is perfectly legal for the City Council to send them out late, or even not at all, public complaints notwithstanding.
And, based on published advice of the Office of Information Practices, the simple solution for someone who wants to assure timely receipt of meeting notices and agendas is to request to be put on the snail mail notice list, which is subject to all the protections and remedies of the law.
But here’s what I failed to consider: The City Council stopped mailing those meeting notices years ago and has relied exclusively on email and online posting.
And that, it appears, does violate the Sunshine Law in its current incarnation.
Read the more complete story in my Civil Beat this week, “Hawaii Monitor — Council Notices Don’t Comply with Sunshine Law.”
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I know the Council doesn’t rely “exclusively” on online postings: they still have physical agendas posted at Honolulu Hale and those are always posted on time – as far as I’ve ever seen.
I admire the way you handle your errors, Ian
There’s no question the law needs to be brought up to date.
In addition, however, it seems there is also a hangup at OIP. That is the agency that monitors/handles complaints about the sunshine law, and my understanding is they have a backlog of at least five months.
I think this should be looked at. Shouldn’t there be a definite turnaround time with OIP? Their current backlog is over six months with no projected response date. Do they have that many complaints? Or are they significantly short handed?